August 22, 2012

Mandy Rhodes, the editor of Holyrood, said the Respect party MP's remarks that Assange was guilty of just "bad manners" by failing to ask permission to have sex with a sleeping woman, had left her "frankly gobsmacked".

[Rhodes] said it was impossible for [Galloway] to continue his column following his remark that having sex with a sleeping woman was "not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it" if she had already had sex with that man.

"There is no excuse, ever, for sex without consent, and regardless of the details of the Assange case, Galloway's comments and inappropriate language about rape per se are alarming," Rhodes said in a statement on the magazine's website....

Galloway has been roundly condemned by senior figures in his own party, by rape crisis groups and other MPs, after saying in a video blog posted last week: "Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them.

"It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, 'do you mind if I do it again?'

"It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape, or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning."

Take note. That's something that if you say it, you will lose your job. It's now, officially, a topic that cannot be discussed anymore. Feminists used to have to fight to get sex without consent recognized as real rape. (Here's Susan Estrich's book "Real Rape," spelling it out in 1988 for people who were struggling with concept could bring it within grasp.) Now, you're on notice that making distinctions between types of rape could utterly destroy you. Don't talk about it.

What a victory for women in the war on women.

ADDED: There's a big difference between Akin and Galloway, and it's not just that one's a righty and one's a lefty. Akin is, I think, rather dumb, and he's obviously inarticulate. By contrast, Galloway is quite smart and articulate.

Ironically, it was Galloway who was talking about a category that could be termed — using language properly — "legitimate rape." When Akin said "legitimate rape," he was referring to the most serious kinds of incidents within the larger category of unconsented-to sexual intercourse, the acts that everyone will agree are rape.

The word "legitimate" makes it sound as though Akin were saying those acts are acceptable, but he only meant those are the acts that are properly referred to with the word rape. And this was all in the context of talking about abortion.

Akin wants to say abortion is always wrong, and he's got to deal with the widely held opinion that a woman who has become pregnant through rape ought to be able to get an abortion. How can he find a way to say no? What if it were true that when it's a really serious rape — an act properly categorized as rape — that the woman's body would repel the sperm? That would be really convenient as a way to fend off the argument that has worked so strongly against his absolute anti-abortion position. Of course, it's not true, so it's some highly stupid wishful thinking on his part.

Now, let's look at what Galloway said. He's talking about the kind of rape that's not at the core of what is reprehensible about rape. Like Akin, he's thinking about the most serious types of rape and distinguishing other acts that also get classified as rape, and he's legitimating those less serious acts. Akin was probably only trying to say that it would be good always to favor the life of the unborn over the interests of the woman (because if she got pregnant, she wasn't a victim of the harshest violence).

But Galloway wasn't talking about the innocence of the unborn at all. He was talking about the innocence of the man who has sex with a woman without her consent. He was saying that when a man is naked in bed with a woman who has already had sex with him, that man can proceed with another act of intercourse without acquiring her consent. He's saying that something that some people categorize as rape is not really rape.

So Akin and Galloway raise 2 different issues about rape. One is about access to abortion in a world where there is rape. The other is about the extent to which sexual intercourse should be criminalized. These are actually both things we should be able to talk about!

(Once, when I was questioned by a very nasty bullying lawyer in a deposition, I decided to note the tone of his rhetoric at every opportunity. "Your sarcasm is noted," and so forth. He caught on quickly that my comments would end up in the transcript -- and might be read by a jury. He got a bit more civil after that.)

You could argue that what he's really guilty of is failing to make distinctions among different types of rape.

He wants to say that there are no different types of things that can all be called "rape." He wants to say that there is only one kind of rape, the kind that "anyone with any sense can possibly recognise." He says that something that is a different type of thing must be called something that is not rape.

He is saying, in effect, sex without consent is not a kind of rape to be distinguished from another kind of rape. He says it's not rape at all.

His critics are saying, to the contrary, "This thing, which is obviously different in some ways from the thing that you say is rape, is perhaps a different kind of rape, but it is still rape." It is the critics who are distinguishing between different kinds of rape. It is he who is not.

It went wrong at the end of the 70s when rape as a crime against a woman's modesty changed to penetration without consent, which consent comes in a thousand varieties and nonvarieties. A pandora's box of varieties. Rape as a mood crime.

The particular case, that Buckley wrote an essay on in NR, was the legal question whether a man could rape his wife. Buckley argued that rape was a crime against feminine modesty, and so could not happen between man and wife, there being no modesty to violate. Instead the correct legal charge was assault, as it would be in the case at hand if they wanted to follow it.

The revulsion at rape in fact depends, still, on an idea of feminine modesty and its violation, but that's kept pretty far below the text.

Women are not supposed to have modesty any longer, which is the theoretical problem for the left.

Bring back the old rape, and its meaning would again coincide with common sense.

The corollary to this rule was a now outlawed consent that marriage was said to confer upon a husband. He could not do violence, but he could take no to mean yes and not be imprisioned for the violation.

Only 20 years ago we all accepted the legal rule that a husband could not legally rape his wife.

I really don't understand what you are trying to say here. Free speech doesn't mean consequence free speech. I realize that as a tenured professor, you (and your buddy Instapundit) can say really stupid and offensive things and there is precious little your employer can do about it. But most of the workers (and capitalists for that matter) of the world aren't as lucky as you.

Honestly, Margaret, where do they find these asshats? Is it just me, or is there a different Republican each week with his head up my whole thing? What exactly are they looking for up there – a tax refund? http://margaretandhelen.com/author/margaretandhelen/.

A woman goes home with a man she has never met before and fucks him. Maybe more than once. Who knows.

They sleep.

In the morning he tries it again. She claims that he initiated the act and penetrated her while she was sleeping. She claims she did not consent. She claims. She claims.

I will grant that if she says that she no longer wants to have sex with him, there can be rape in this situation. But in this circumstance, why should I believe her? In fact why shouldn't the evidentiary level be higher than the usual he said=she said?

For a confident guy about almost everything else, he lacks confidence in his own innocence.

He lacks confidence in his ability to get a fair trial. That is a classic reason for refusal to extradite. It seems to me that he's unlikely to get a fair trial, given what has transpired so far. So I am with the weasel on this one.

But by using the term “forced to submit” rather than “without consent”, isn’t the ACO&G making the same “legitimate rape” distinction that Akin did to establish “varying degrees of rape”?

"There is absolutely no veracity to the claim that “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” A woman who is raped has no control over ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized egg (ie, pregnancy). To suggest otherwise contradicts basic biological truths.

Any person forced to submit to sexual intercourse against his or her will is the victim of rape, a heinous crime. There are no varying degrees of rape. To suggest otherwise is inaccurate and insulting and minimizes the serious physical and psychological repercussions for all victims of rape.

Moreover, did Akin really claim that the woman who is raped has “control” over her biological responses?

It should be higher because she has already, on the same night in the same bed, been fucking this man with obvious consent. Now she wants him convicted of a serious crime because she claims she changed her mind in the morning. He said-she said is basically a coin flip. Under this circumstance, you think that's fair?

Reverse the facts.

In the morning he wakes up and she is sucking his dick. He claims he never consented to the blow job. He says he told her to stop. He goes to the police and asks that she be arrested for rape. Do you think that, after they stopped laughing at him, they would even prosecute such a case?

Galloway is not a smart man. Articulate? Certainly. Outrageous? Yes. Corrupt? Certainly.It is a point of pride for me that Canada refused him entry because of his links to an Islamic terrorist group (Hezbollah or Hamas, can't remember which).

'lesyln' said: "@David, He claims. He claims.Why should the burden of proof be higher on the woman?"

She is accusing him of a rape, defined in law as a criminal act. And presumably would not make the accusation unless she intends to ask the state to prosecute him. The burden of proof here is on the accuser, not the accused. And the standard of proof- "beyond reasonable doubt"- is high.

At least, that's as it should be from the PoV of a juror and the criminal justice system. From the PoV of someone just reading or hearing about it, well, you're free to believe whatever it pleases you to believe.

What's worse is to be a college freshman falsely accused of rape, with no evidence against you, no police report or charges, no official school complaint, and yet get kicked out of school on one woman's say-so (a woman who had done this before).

EDH said... Moreover, did Akin really claim that the woman who is raped has “control” over her biological responses?

I didn't take it this way. I originally understood him to be referring to a natural response to the trauma of rape, the body's "control" only in an instinctive physiological sense. Not in the sense that women select or direct the response.

But his comments were so stupid maybe my brain automatically found the closest exit from the wtf? loop it was in.

According to Swedish law Assange is guilty if the events went down as the victim described them. Look at the second paragraph:

“A person who by assault or otherwise by violence or by threat of a criminal act forces another person to have sexual intercourse or to undertake or endure another sexual act that, having regard to the nature of the violation and the circumstances in general, is comparable to sexual intercourse, shall be sentenced for rape to imprisonment for at least two and at most six years.

This shall also apply if a person engages with another person in sexual intercourse or in a sexual act which under the first paragraph is comparable to sexual intercourse by improperly exploiting that the person, due to unconsciousness, sleep, intoxication or other drug influence, illness, physical injury or mental disturbance, or otherwise in view of the circumstances in general, is in a helpless state."

Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them.

I’m not sure those people are entirely wrong. That doesn't mean once you've had sex with someone, you must have sex forever and ever with them but you're still kind of in the moment, particularly if you spent the night. I don't know. Regardless of what you think, I can't imagine that you could EVER prove rape in such a situation, absent physical evidence of a struggle or something proving he drugged her.

I would be more impressed with women's demands that government stay out of their vagina when they aren't demanding government mandated free birth control so they can engage in casual sex without fear of being punished with a child.

There may be something to Galloway's idea. Years ago, when I was married, I would tell my wife: 'you know where everything is so start without me and I would catch up later'. I could have been ahead of my time.

Shanna said... Is this what she said happened? There are some fairly complicated facts so it's not clear either what hapenned or what the law will find. From wiki...

The defence also highlighted evidence that: plaintiff 2 had later admitted to being "half asleep" after consensual sex, rather than "asleep"; that the plaintiffs had originally been seeking to compel Assange to take an STD test rather than prosecution;[245] and that plaintiff 1 had thrown a Crayfish party for Assange at her home the evening after the alleged incidents, from which she tweeted: "Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world's coolest, smartest people! It's amazing!" and invited Assange to stay in her room afterwards.[246]

There are additional complications because there's another woman involved who at first made an accusation about his refusing to us a condom during their second bout, but it turned out the condom broke rather than he refused. She later withdrew her accusation but was somehow instrumental in getting the current accuser to make her allegations.

I don't know how any of this will be decided, but the case is a lot more difficult than those asserting it factually seem to understand. In particular there's a big difference between asleep and "half-asleep".

Wouldn't it be ironic if Galloway lost his standing defending a guy on rape charges he wasn't guilty of?

rhhardin who astutely, accurately, hilariously pointed out at 1:10 that a thing called rape is already at least once been renamed to something else, says the most brilliant things and everybody reads right by and I'm over here stupidly "Yes!" with an unsmacked high-five hanging. Er, that high-five was zen koan dun in sign language.

There is a strange fluke about Blogger that is useful. In the front before these comments, the front page of this blog, when you click on the title of the post then you are delivered to the place where the post resides specifically and all the comments to the post are right there on the bottom, you do not have to click again to get to them. When you do that, then it shows who deleted a comment. Otherwise it just shows by the commenter or by the administrator.

So when I want to know who deleted a comment, and that does happen sometimes, I back out and reenter through the blog post's title.

"There is no excuse, ever, for sex without consent, and regardless of the details of the Assange case, Galloway's comments and inappropriate language about rape per se are alarming," Rhodes said in a statement on the magazine's website....

Almost any reason by which Gorgeous George (or Assange) suffers is fine by me, but I have to ask a question:

I've had sexual encounters where I've fallen asleep, only to be awakened by the woman attempting another round.

"You have to accept the fact that part of the sizzle of sex comes from the danger of sex. You can be overpowered."

or how about?

"Let's get rid of Infirmary Feminism, with its bedlam of bellyachers, anorexics, bulimics, depressives, rape victims, and incest survivors. Feminism has become a catch-all vegetable drawer where bunches of clingy sob sisters can store their moldy neuroses."

We mostly got on Whoopi's case, at least I did, because the situation with Polanski wasn't as simple as consensual sex but statutory rape. The girl was 13. And she was drugged. So if she had agreed before she got there, it was pretty obvious that "no" was entirely ignored. If it wasn't rape-rape it was on the basis of "she Went where she shouldn't have gone and wore what she wouldn't have worn."

That Said, the faux outrage that someone might talk about "legitimate" rape is just too much.

Even setting aside consensual statutory rape only a rabid ideologue insists that there are not gray zones involving morning-after regrets and alcohol.